By Helena IR Staff

A diverse group of sportsmen, conservationists, loggers and ranchers is encouraging the state's congressional delegation to sponsor an ambitious grass-roots management plan for the Blackfoot and Clearwater drainages.

Considering that the plan appears to have something for almost everyone, it would be difficult for them to refuse.

By Bob Ekey
The Wilderness Society

Managing our national forests is often so contentious in Montana that it is not just an issue – it is a battle or war. How many of us describe forest issues as the “timber wars”?

Even Jack Ward Thomas, the former chief of the U.S. Forest Service, once described the situation as the war being over, but the environmentalists are still going around the battlefield bayoneting the wounded, while the industry holdouts are doing a ghost dance hoping that the old days will return.